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Topic: A market economy needs to be free of ideology
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WingNut
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1292
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posted 20 July 2002 09:58 AM
Maybe it is worth considering: quote: McMillan is waging a two-front war here, battling against those who think markets are inherently exploitative and those who think markets can do no wrong. Markets, he writes, are human institutions, with human imperfections. They do not necessarily work well, and they are ''too important to be left to the ideologues.'' Without effective government oversight to assure good corporate market behavior, we can expect two, three, many Enrons. And everyone will suffer as trust declines and investment shrinks. ''Countries with stronger investor protections have bigger capital markets,'' McMillan points out. ''The efficacy of the stock market varies with how activist the government is in setting the platform.'' Ronald Reagan once famously declared, ''Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.'' Ronald Reagan was wrong.
From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 20 July 2002 01:14 PM
Well, I have often said that what humans can make, humans can un-make. The economy and how it is structured are human inventions. But that doesn't mean they are easy to change, both for logistical and religious reasons.Why do I say "religious"? Because the capitalist economy has effectively been fused into the modern religion of capitalist progress generally. It is an article of faith that no system other than ours can be as good or that anything can be fundamentally wrong with it. But should we choose to preserve the market economy - that is, capitalism - as the main mechanism for motivating the production of all manner of goods and services which are excludable and private (which means that all natural monopolies should be government-owned, such as electricity, water, the actual infrastructure for cable television itself, national defence, light-houses, et cetera), it is important to keep in mind the maxim that capitalism is a good servant, but a bad master.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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flotsom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2832
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posted 20 July 2002 03:30 PM
By 'religeous' don't you mean scientific materialism ?'Capitalism' is one part of an ideological triune. I wonder whether an ethical capitalism is possible or not, and if it is possible, how, logistically, will the free market interact with these naturally prohibitive legislations. Catastrophically ? Or is it that, once the will of general concensus is there, capitalism will mold itself naturally and seemlessly to the new and evolved civilization ? Capitalism being only the compounded mass of finite market exchanges and the regulations that define them. DrConway ?
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002
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flotsom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2832
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posted 20 July 2002 04:33 PM
Right, but without looking back, I mean, take our recently emergent environmental awareness; you are currently more able than I am, to extrapolate down along the chain of economic effects to a place where what you imagine and the eventuality aren't that different from one another.Would an enlightened society be allowed to retain the best of a capitalist free market ? I think so, but... The USofA, for example, has a heck of a long way to go before they get even to where we are, in Canada, vis a vis multiculturalism, socialism and so forth. Probably, in many ways, it is our economic dependence on a relatively unenlightened society that holds our nation back from further social evolution.
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 20 July 2002 05:01 PM
quote: The USofA, for example, has a heck of a long way to go before they get even to where we are, in Canada, vis a vis multiculturalism, socialism and so forth. Probably, in many ways, it is our economic dependence on a relatively unenlightened society that holds our nation back from further social evolution.
This is precisely true. Bearing out your statement are such statistics that show that Canada is generally "in the middle" between Europe and the USA. Our unemployment rate tends to be more like Europe's in nature, but our economic equality levels tend to be intermediate. Our overall tax take as a percentage of GDP is near the OECD average, with the USA being dead last. Our crime rates and incarceration rates tend to be smack dab in the middle - not as high as the USA's but not as low as Europe's. The only area where we are unique is that our government strictly forbids any private-sector involvement in the single-payer nature of our health insurance system. In short, we have the potential to evolve to Europe's relatively enlightened stance on social relations and economic relations (although their immigration laws tend to be more restrictive and their corporate CEOs can be just as ignorantly unenlightened as American ones - although I do love to cite the example of the American pharmaceutical company which merged with a Swedish one and completely shocked the Swedish CEOs with the wanton gusto and abandon with which a plan was presented to downsize the workforce radically after the merger), but our proximity to the United States does indeed expose us to more Philistinic and backwards notions about how to deal with structural issues in our economies.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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